Going to the Dogs

You aren't going to make any money going to the Red Sox, unless you sit in the grandstand with the professional gamblers and bet whether the next pitch to Ben Oglivie on a one-and-one count with two out and nobody on in the sixth will be a ball or a strike. But you might if you pick up on the dog races at Wonderland, which go on every summer night of the week except Sunday. Getting there is easy: take the red line from Harvard Square to Park, and then the blue line from Park to the last stop.

The whole purpose of going is to bet, so buy the official program with the dogs' weights, track records and the anonymous expert's picks. The best handicapper works for The Globe--he gets about 60 per cent right, the best sources say--and you should buy the paper beforehand. The greyhounds tend to be more chancy than horses, longshots are better bets and favorites fold up as often as not.

The food is better than at Fenway, and the crowd about five times as hysterical, middle-class families risking their savings and lumpenproletarians (pimps, mutes, cripples) predominating. The dogs themselves add to the Weimar-like irrationality: a heavy favorite can, like one sure thing in a class D match of yesteryear, simply lie down on the track, look at the crowd and take a piss, while the fans that bet on him (her) scream for blood. From Class D the dogs are sent to various ethnic restaurants in the area.

Admission to the track is cheap--75 cents in these days, when lousy seats in the Fenway bleachers run at twice that much. But you're almost certain to spend and possibly gain a lot more than that--without putting money on it, there just isn't that mush aesthetic interest in watching baying 70 lb. beasts barking, gasping and snapping after a tiny fake rabbit ten yards ahead of them on the track, attached to some weird automatic device.

Bet on any dog sired by Joe Nemo; and don't, even if he's a big bruiser, bet on a former Class A dog named Chase Jones, or any hound from the Joseph Zion Kennel.